Is there a way I can get World shapefiles without the countries included?

Question

I'm totally new to shapefiles so I might be missing something obvious but.

I'm trying to get the following shapefiles

1. A Global shapefile that only has the world boundaries
2. Every continent shapefile that only has the continent boundaries and no country included.

Any suggestions on where I can get such files? All I can get is one large world shapefile that contains all continents and countries.

Answer 1

You could use the land polygons from the Natural Earth dataset. There is also a countries layer that has a continent attribute that you could dissolve on to create the continents layer (I've never seen that as a prebuilt dataset).

Answer 2

Or you could search and find this link which allows you to download it for free.

https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/esri::world-continents/data?geometry=101.953%2C-89.382%2C-101.953%2C86.054

Answer 3

You could probably run a dissolve with QGIS or ArcGIS on a countries shapefile and get the continent boundaries but you might either have to have a continent field or create one yourself for the dissolve.

A world land area would be similar but have it dissolve all boundaries.